'Attitude can be a lot of things,' Canadiens coach Claude Julien says

Canadiens head coach Claude Julien speaks to the media in at the team’s Brossard training facility after Dominique Ducharme was named a new assistant coach on April 27, 2018. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette

Canadiens coach Claude Julien did not take part in the team’s postmortem news conference on April 9 after the team missed the playoffs and finished 28th in the overall NHL standings with a 29-40-13 record.

Instead, owner/president Geoff Molson and general manager Marc Bergevin met with the media and the GM blamed the team’s lack of success largely on the players’ bad attitude, something that reflects on the coaching staff.

“It was a disappointing season from start to finish and that was unacceptable,” Bergevin said. “The overall attitude of our team needs to change.

“I think an attitude changes a lot of things,” the GM added. “Of course, players make things better. But if you have good players with the right attitude … I could bring anybody here, but if the attitude is not better we’re going to be in the same spot.”

Julien did meet with the media on Friday in Brossard after the Canadiens announced Dominique Ducharme had been hired as a new assistant coach and that assistants J.J. Daigneault and Dan Lacroix won’t be returning. Not surprisingly, Julien was asked about Bergevin’s comments about the players’ attitude being a problem.

“I think at the end of the day, attitude can be a lot of things,” Julien said. “What was said was said by (Bergevin) and that remains with him. I’m not saying I’m disagreeing, because I know what he’s talking about. But I think overall we had a lot of issues this year with injuries and everything else. Eventually, you lose a lot of games and I guess it’s not an easy thing. And for players, a lot of them let their guards down. Losing can be a habit, such as winning. There’s a lot of things … I think it’s a little bit more complicated than just using the word attitude. I know what he was talking about. I don’t think it’s something that you really want to get into to define more than you want to fix it and do the right thing moving forward and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Ducharme has been brought in by Bergevin to try and help fix the problem and will work as a fourth coach behind the bench, joining Julien, associate coach Kirk Muller and a new defence coach who has yet to be hired. Julien noted he has been the fourth coach behind the bench for Team Canada under Mike Babcock at the Olympics and World Cup of Hockey.

“The game at the ice level is a lot faster than it is upstairs, as you guys probably know,” said Julien, who has four seasons remaining on his contract. “So never a bad thing to have some people helping you out along the way. And from my experience with Mike Babcock, I thought it was great.

“It’s not a bad thing to have another set of eyes doing something specific because as a coach you’re looking for line changes, matchups, you’re looking for different things,” Julien added. “Dom is really good at evaluating a game and then, obviously, making some in-game adjustments and stuff like that. We talked about that and I think that’s the direction I want to go. So he’s going to be behind the bench and he’ll be hands-on just like my other assistant coaches.”

Ducharme was head coach and GM of the Drummondville Voltigeurs and also coached Team Canada to a gold medal at this year’s world junior championship. He coached the Halifax Mooseheads to the Memorial Cup championship in 2013 when current Canadien Jonathan Drouin was on the team.

Julien said he hopes to hire a new defence coach sooner rather than later and that he has a short list of candidates for the job.

“I don’t look for yes men, I look for people that have opinions and that are willing to work with the same goal in mind and (Ducharme’s) definitely one of them and the next guy will probably be the same,” Julien said. “I’m going to try and find the best candidate possible and it doesn’t have to be French. It can be whatever. If it is French, great. If it’s not, it’s going to be the best candidate.”

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